Snow sports such as skiing and snowboarding are popular sports with continuously evolving technology and practices. One common activity in snow sports is taking a “jump.” To use a jump, the rider approaches the jump area at high speed. The rider leaves the snow at the edge or lip of the jump, continues through the air, and ideally lands in the “landing area.” The landing area is a sloped surface designed to minimize impact force upon landing. A jump area generally comprises an angled jump where the rider actually leaves the snow, the tabletop or gap, the landing area, and the run-out area.
The jump may be part of ski run or in a terrain park. A terrain park is an area of a snow resort that includes designed features analogous to a skate park, allowing skiers, snowboarders and the like (referred to as “riders”) to perform tricks including grinds, taps, and jumps in a similar fashion to skateboarders.
There are hazards associated with the use of jumps. One is that the landing area is not usually visible from the lip of the jump. Additionally, obstructions in the landing area pose a high risk of injury to the rider, who cannot substantially adjust jump trajectory after leaving the surface of the snow.
The most common obstructions found in the landing area are spectators and other riders. Sometimes uninformed people wander into the landing area because they simply do not understand the safety risk they are posing to themselves and to others. Other times a rider may be too injured to clear the landing area quickly, or at all.
One solution to this problem is to use a spotter. A spotter is a person who stands near the jump in such a way as to see whether there are obstructions in the landing area and signals to waiting riders to go when the area is clear. However, while many resorts provide terrain parks with jumps, few provide spotters for jumps. An automated system that can detect the presence of people and other obstructions in the landing area and convey that information to waiting riders is needed.
Another hazard associated with jumps is speed. If the rider is not moving at an appropriate speed when airborne, the rider may land in an area other than the landing area. If the rider is moving too slowly, the jump may not be ‘cleared’, resulting in the rider missing the landing area short and instead landing in the tabletop or gap area. If the rider is moving too fast, the jump may extend past the sloped landing area, causing the rider to land in the flatter run-out area. Landing in either of these areas subjects the rider's body to much higher impact forces than landing in the appropriately sloped area. It is largely left to the rider's experience to determine whether a given speed is safe for a given jump.
Several U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,505,878; 4,546,650; 5,003,820; 6,533,296; and 4,262,537 disclose ski-mounted devices that can measure speed, but these systems cannot effectively convey information in real time because the displays are mounted on the ski device or on the rider, making them difficult, and perhaps even dangerous, to view while actively skiing or snowboarding. Further, these systems do not provide information about an optimal speed range in relation to a jump.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,414,528, an automated system for improving skier safety is described. This system signals whether a previous skier has failed to leave the landing area, but it does not convey information about other obstructions or hazards that may be present in the landing area. Further, this system does not detect people that have wandered into the jump landing area from an area other than the location of the jump.